My Questions and Answers (MQA): An Interview with Andreas Koch

[christopher3393]

Well, this pulls some of the MQA issues together well and Mr. Koch's position is crystal clear.

Some highlights:

 

If you see a new format emerge today, it is most likely motivated by a manufacturer's thirst for licensing revenue. If they market it cleverly, they could possibly count on some music label's support, because they always like to sell you their same existing recordings in yet a new format again...

 

Oh yes, the new format has to be proprietary and patentable so royalties can be collected. After all that is the entire reason to do it—selfish greed. As we have seen above, there is no other good reason, no customer benefit...

 

They are trained in creating a distortion field around reality by evading pointy questions and giving vague, imprecise, and inaccurate answers...

 

Most importantly, our scheme does not solve any problem that the world currently has right now. It is based on lossy algorithms and compressions that make assumptions about our auditory system. As history has shown with MP3 and others, the truth behind our claims about quality and high resolution of our new format will eventually come out. When that will happen is a fairly direct function of how well our marketing department will be able to hide the truth. In the meantime we just need to maximize our licensing revenue stream and then run...

 

Ultimately, a format war is decided in marketing, not engineering. We have made this experience all too often...

 

He does get into some specifics, but I don't want to run on too long here. For some this may just be a rehash, but it is well written. I found it worth a read.

[christopher3393]

URL please?

 

DOH! Here it is again: MQA